


love me in whatever way

by theoneinquisitor



Series: tumblr prompts [13]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-04
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-08-17 11:41:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16515758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theoneinquisitor/pseuds/theoneinquisitor
Summary: prompt: Hurt + Comfort if possible Bellamy being hurt and Clarke pissed at him for being an idiot while patching him up.





	love me in whatever way

**Author's Note:**

> apparently i'm a fluff hoe now. who knew?  
> title comes from the song of the same name by my main man, James Blake.

One of the first rules they teach you in medical school is that you are, by no means, supposed to have any attachment to the patient.

And of course, Clarke breaks that rule within a year of her first real job.

It’s not that she had planned to grow attached to Bellamy Blake. It just happened. He’s been there for her worst moments, supportive and calm and strong. Without him, she’s almost sure she would have fallen apart, nothing left but a pile of broken pieces and dust.

It goes like this: Clarke moved nearly 3,000 miles from home for a job as an emergency room M.D at Arkadia Memorial. Why? Because there was nothing left except an ex-fiancé and her best friends grave in her home town and this was her chance to start over. Exciting as the job was, settling in proved to be difficult. Until it wasn’t.

 **The Meeting:** a new doctor believes in the privacy and respect of all humans, even ones who have committed a crime. And yes, even if the crime was within the same two hours that they arrive at the hospital. Enter the cop -- Bellamy fucking Blake who is argumentative and the epitome of Big Dick Energy™ in the worst way. She convinces him to leave after an explosive argument that could have very well gotten her fired, because professionalism is often synonymous to kissing ass, but karma seems to be very, very real. The patient somehow manages to slip his bed restraint and stab her in the arm with a pair of surgical scissors. Good thing there was a cop around, huh?

Despite the less than stellar circumstances that brought them together, she makes her first friend that day. Bellamy sits with her to take the police report once the patient is restrained, and even waits while one of the nurses removes and cleans the small wound in her arm. She learns that he’s new to the policing thing and she’ll never forget his answer when she asked him why.

“Things are weird right now for cops,” his leg was bouncing anxiously as they waited, eyes watching as each nurse passed by, “And I asked myself how to make it better? How to stop all the fucked up stuff they keep doing and still bring justice to those who deserve it. The answer was easy: Be the change you wish to see in the world.”

In any other situation, Clarke would have found quoting Gandhi to be a tad bit pretentious, but something strange fluttered in her stomach that she tried to chalk up as adrenaline. By the time he left to haul the patient off to jail and fulfill his duty, he was smiling at her and she found herself hoping to see him again.

As it turns out, the hospital was pretty much his beat, so she began to see a lot of him. Responding to security threats. Bringing in forms. Mostly, being on guard for arrests who were on the fast track to jail but needed some sort of treatment first. So they talked. Sometimes for minutes. Sometimes for an hour – their lunch breaks weirdly coincided on almost a weekly basis.

 **What She Learns:** Bellamy grew up under difficult conditions. A single mom in a poor neighborhood who later became absentee working three jobs to provide for her kids. A younger sister, five years younger than him, three years younger than Clarke, who relied on him and who he felt responsible for taking care of. He raised her, essentially, and she’s off now somewhere in California living a nomadic lifestyle with her hippie boyfriend. He has a dog. His best friends name is Miller. He likes history and baking and gardening. He also played lacrosse in high school. She learns everything about him.

Fuck him for that. Honestly. Because now, she’s standing in front of him as he lies in one of the sterile hospital beds and contemplating smacking him on the forehead and falling into his arms in tears.

She’s not emotionally unstable. Not really. He just brings out something in her she had forgotten existed.

“Fancy seeing you here.” He jokes, but it falls onto the hideous tile floor between them with a thud. She blinks at him, trying to find some semblance of professionalism. Her hand is slightly trembling as she grabs his chart on the wall.

The words are blurry. She can hardly make them out, but she catches enough. _Gunshot wound. Right arm. Significant blood loss. No vital damage._

“You know, Princess,” she can hear the hope in his voice, like the stupid nickname will somehow erase the severity of the current situation, “This was really just an elaborate scheme to see you. I figured I would change it up, you know. I love a good role play.”

She has to remove herself from the room, finding her nurse and requesting the needed supplies.

“Oh, I can do that. There is a car accident in room seven." Maya tells her, starting to move towards Bellamy’s room.

“I’ve got this.” her voice is surprisingly stable, “Won’t take long.”

She thinks about waiting outside the room until the supplies arrive. She’s not sure she can look at him again without breaking down because, _fuck,_ he was shot. And with that understanding comes a myriad of emotions, the first of which is: what if he had died and she never told him how she felt?

 **The Most Recent Development:** She and Bellamy became fast friends, spending more time than probably necessary together. Including, but not limited: trivia night on Wednesdays, Movie Night on Saturdays, and frequent daily texting. He was her first connection in the new town and she attached to him quickly. Except, then they weren’t just hanging out. They were making out because they’re two single objectively attractive adults and _of course_ he’s good in bed. It’s been a thing for a couple of months and she just saw him four hours ago for fuck’s sake. Naked and happy and in one piece.

She pushes open the curtain and reenters the room, checking all the wiring and tubing to make sure it’s hooked up right. A bag of O negative is hanging above his bed, next to the bag of morphine. His eyes flutter open at the touch of her hand.

“You should see the other guy.” He smirks and she hates him at this moment. He must sense it because he sighs. “I’m fine, Clarke.”

The gunshot in his arm says otherwise.

She’s saved from the projectile word vomit she was about to spew on him as Maya shuffles into the room, pushing the cart with her requested supplies. She thanks the nurse and dismissed her with a nod, turning back to organize the tray. She wraps her foot around the chair and pulls it to her, sitting at his bed side.

“It’s not even that bad.” He continues, and she can feel his eyes trying to find hers. She keeps hers focused on the computer, typing in his name and birthdate. She shouldn’t have that memorized. She shouldn’t actually be treating him because the rules say not to. But she sure as hell won’t let anyone else do it.

“Really, the silent treatment?”

Clarke finally makes eye contact, glaring at him as her fingers peel back the blood-soaked bandage from his bicep. The blood is, luckily, beginning to clot and there is an exit wound almost straight through. In and out. A clean shot and if she were objectively speaking, she would tell him he’s lucky.

But it’s not really that lucky considering he got shot in the first place.

She packs and presses a thick set of gauze to the wound as her other hand begins to organize the items around her tray. She calls out to the Maya for an extra dose of numbing agent but continues to look anywhere but directly at him.

“Clarke…” he groans, leaning back against the flattened pillow.

“Don’t move.”

“You can’t actually be mad about this. I’m a cop. These things happen.” He tells her softly and she can feel his eyes on her. She hates it. She hates that she’s mad about it because a) it’s a complete violation of boundaries as a professional and b) it means she cares more than she should.

 **The Ugly Reality:** They aren’t just friends. Never have been. Things are messy and complicated and in the midst of all of it, she could have lost him. Just like that.

She knows what his job is. She’s not naïve. It’s dangerous and crazy things happen all the time and maybe she’s being unreasonable. It’s another day on the job. Another risk that always has to be taken.

She removes the gauze once the bleeding has stopped and wipes around the area with a sterilizing solution. She hears him suck in a breath at the way it, undoubtedly, burns. She grabs the numbing agent and finally glances up at him, “Deep breath. This is going to hurt.”

He closes his eyes as she injects it, scrunching his nose in pain as the fluid enters in. She does one in the back and one in the front, and he lets out a shaky breath when she finishes. She massages the flesh around it as it kicks in.

“You’re really not going to talk to me?” he sighs. His eyes are watery when he opens them and she hates herself for looking. It causes something uncomfortable to rise in her chest, and she feels something beginning to burn behind her eyes.

“What do you want me to say?” she grabs the suture that Maya has prepped and begins working. He doesn’t flinch as it penetrates his skin, instead focusing on her so intently that she begins to feel like she’s under a microscope.

“Shit, I don’t know.” He grumbles, “But you aren’t looking at me and I don’t know what to do.”

It comes out before she can stop herself, “Not get shot, for starters.”

He snorts, “Yeah, I must’ve forgotten to not do that today.”

Sewing a person back together is strange concept. The body, delicate as the pair of jeans that rip or the tear in your favorite pillow. She concentrates on the next suture and silence fills the air once more. It’s not tense, just tired. He’s tired from the blood loss. She’s tired of tip-toeing around the truth.

 **The Conclusion (as of ten minutes ago):** she’s in love with him. Completely. Recklessly. It wasn’t supposed to happen. They made rules about it because he made it clear he doesn’t date, and she wasn’t looking for anything serious. Except things got very serious and she knew it should stop, but she couldn’t bring herself to stop it. She didn’t want to. Doesn’t want to. But how does she tell him that when this is his life? And he’s made it clear.

“I’m sorry,” he says finally as she clips the last thread, “For what it’s worth.”

She sits back on the stool and peels off the gloves, finally allowing herself to look at him. He’s alive, his cheeks are rosy, and his chest rises and falls with each breath. He’s here and things can continue like normal.

They can’t.

“I can’t do this anymore,” she whispers, and something wet trickles down her cheek and she swipes at it quickly, hoping it’s just a fluke because damn it, she isn’t going to do this here. She steels herself, blocking every inch of her that screams at her not to.

“Do what? You’re a great doctor, I barely felt a thing…”

“No.” she closes her eyes for a moment, willing the emotions back to their cage, “This. Us. Whatever this is. I can’t…”

The bed squeaks as he leans up, and he grips the side rail for support. His eyes, despite the morphine induced haze, are incredulous as he stares at her, “You cannot be serious right now.”

She presses her lips together. Her nostrils flare.

“Jesus, Clarke, you couldn’t have done this earlier? If you wanted to break up with me, you didn’t need to wait until I got shot for an out.” He’s swinging his legs over the bed before she can stop him and grabbing at the tubes attached to his arm.

She rushes over to his side to swat his hand away, “What the hell are you doing?!”

“You treated me. I’m leaving,” he says matter-of-factly, “I can’t be here right now.”

She grips his hand as he tries to peel at the tape holding the IV to his arm, “Stop. You need to rest.”

“Rest? Clarke, you’re trying to break up with me in a hospital room!”

“How can we break up? We aren’t even together! You made sure of it!”

He stops pulling then and she lets out a sigh of relief. “What are you talking about?”

Her hands drop to her sides. “You’re the one who said that this couldn’t be more than it was.” He still looks lost, eyebrows knitted together, and face scrunched in either pain or confusion or both, so she continues. “I understand why, now. This job is dangerous and being attached to someone, you have to worry about more than just yourself in the field. But I got attached and I just need some space because I really don’t know what else to do…”

“Clarke, I’m in love with you.” It comes out as a half-groan, half-plea and she nearly swallows her tongue.

“What?” she manages to choke out. She thinks maybe she misheard him. She heard what she wanted to hear instead of what he actually said.

“I was half in-love with you when we met,” he confesses again, shaking his head derisively.

“Then why…” her brain still can’t form coherent sentences.

“Didn’t I tell you before?” he finishes, “I guess we were both on the same page. You thought I didn’t want anything serious and I didn’t want to rush you into anything serious. But fuck, Clarke. When I got shot, you were the first person I thought of. All I could think about was you. How would you react? How could I have gone this long without telling you how I feel? What if the shot had hit me somewhere else, you would never know.”

It takes a moment for everything to sink in, for the fact that Bellamy _loves_ her to hit. But when it does she laughs. Covering her eyes with her hands she moans, “We’re a complete fucking mess.”

“Yeah, well…”

She realizes that he’s laid himself bare before her, but she has yet to do the same. Something catches in her throat as she looks at him. “I’m so scared.”

He must know what she means because he steps into her space, reaching up with his good hand to tuck a stray piece of hair behind her ear. His thumb caresses her cheek gently, “Me too.”

“What if something worse happens? Next time the shot is deadly. Or the person you’re arresting decides to hurt you. Or you, I don’t know, get hit by some asshole who hates cops? God, Bellamy, I can’t lose you.”

He pulls her into his chest and she buries her nose into his neck, wrapping herself into his familiar scent. Musk and sweat and just, Bellamy. She tries not to let her mind run away with all those thoughts, tries to be here in the moment but the reality is so much greater than both of them.

“This is my job, Clarke,” he murmurs into her ear, “Just like being a doctor is yours. The world is dangerous and all of those things you said, could happen to anyone. But just because the danger is there doesn’t mean we can put our lives on hold ‘just in case.’ If you can’t look past that, I understand. But I needed you to know how I feel.”

 **The Future:** When she closes her eyes, he’s there. When she imagines her life years from now, he’s standing right there.  She can’t let that go. Bellamy Blake is her future.

She pulls back, curling her fingers into his white t-shirt and pulling him forward. The kiss is soft, a bit sloppy because he’s still weak and dazed from everything. She pulls back quickly and he tries to follow her but she just smiles. He leans his forehead on hers instead.

“I love you, too,” she finally whispers, “In case I haven’t made that clear.”

He smiles, “Yeah, I was hoping you did.”

She helps him back down to the bed and he grabs her hand, pulling her down for another kiss. “Just so we’re clear. We’re like, a thing now.”

She giggles, “Yes, we are.”

“So, will you go to dinner with me tonight?”

“Sorry, Officer Blake. You’re on strict bed rest orders for the next couple of days.” The doctor in her can’t let that one go, despite wanting nothing more than to go out with him on an actual date.

He huffs, “It’s just a scratch. I can handle a date…”

“You need to rest,” she tells him, “But I’ll come over and cuddle later if that helps convince you.”

She leans down to kiss his cheek just as the curtain is pushed back.

“Shit, sorry Doctor,” Maya squeaks, “I’ll just…uh…”

Clarke laughs and gives Bellamy’s hand a squeeze, “If I get fired, I’m coming to your house and mooching off you.”

He calls out to her as she leaves, “Hope you get fired, Doc!”

 **The End:** She doesn’t get fired. But she does go to his house. And she doesn’t really leave after that.

**Author's Note:**

> come hang on tumblr @ octannibal-blake  
> (sometimes i'm too lazy to ling it, okay?0


End file.
